Another year
by tekaine
Summary: Set in near-modern times. Legolas visits Aragorn's grave, and remembers. Implied Aragorn/Legolas, Legolas/Gimli, PG for theme and one cussword.


"Aragorn. I've come again.  
  
"I never thought I'd be doing this. It's too degrading, nearly demeaning enough to make a man cry, if I weren't already. But you asked it of me, and I could never refuse that wistful smile. I hope that makes you happy. I still remember your youth- I think that's the only way I'll ever remember you, even though you probably want me to be realistic.  
  
"What, are you surprised that I remembered to come this year? How could I forget? It's the one day of the year I anticipate- and dread- more than my birthday. Another year. I don't want to think about it. I'm old, you know, older than the dirt under my knees, and that's no joke. I wish sometimes that you hadn't left me, so long ago. things would be much easier now. As it is, you and I still have so much to talk about. so much left unsaid. don't tell me now. It's best left that way. Incomplete, as our little affair was. No, I haven't forgotten that either. That whole business with the little people and Sauron and all them, that nearly made me want to cry, too. it looked like we'd be squashed either way. And though we survived, we were indeed squashed. Don't deny it. I remember the look on your face the day you stepped into your ancestor's shoes and married that disgustingly- cute female.  
  
"Marriage didn't suit you, it never did. You were the wild one. My wild one. I used to forget that you didn't have strong senses back then- no, not wisdom, you had plenty of that- but senses. you couldn't hear the trees, for instance. You couldn't figure out why the sea always held my interest, even though you loved to sail. You didn't try to hide that particular vice from me, not even after your son took over your role as patron to the family. I'm still surprised that you let him do that while you still had color in your beard. You had years left to go but you didn't use them. You left us to die. I nearly did. I only had one person to turn to, since my father disowned me.  
  
"I don't think Gimli ever figured it out, that I loved you first. The bond we shared. it was incomplete, too. I loved him in his own way, as a brother and a friend, but he just didn't have your magic. I think his people are wary of magic anyway. They never really accepted me. Not like you did.  
  
"Damn these tears. I don't like mud, and that's just what I'm making by weeping like this. It's shameful. I don't know why you had to make me come here again. another year of remembering, painful as it is.  
  
"But it wasn't always painful.  
  
"There were times when only beauty showed in the world, and in your eyes. when you lit the fire in the hearth and just stared at it, like a creature spellbound. Even when the regal white began showing in your mane, even when your eyes began to dim- you never admitted it, but I could tell that they did- you would still look. What did you search for in the fire? And then you always turned around and whispered "Lovely" when you saw me. every time I felt as though we were sharing life for the first time.  
  
"Remember, for your hundredth birthday I tried to catch a moonbow for you? I should have asked your wife. I'm sure she would have obliged. She always did have a better understanding of the silver things in life than I do. She would have found a way to put it in a glass ball for you to see every morning. it would have been pretty, but such things are intangible. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and all that nonsense. Sometimes you just can't call something unpleasant, or ugly, or crude. it's just not right. We don't have the right  
  
"Your eyes. your exquisite blue eyes. I still see them when I wake up in the middle of the night. I still see them when I look at whatever lover I've taken to my apartment. I still see them when I look at that funny painting of you on the wall. I never did track down the artist. They must have been psychic to get you so perfect.  
  
"You know, they've written books about us. Last I heard they were trying to make a movie. They'll never find an actor good enough to play you, just like they'll never get me to act in it. Not that they'd try. I don't call attention to myself. With the way things are going nowadays, I could get put in a laboratory or something just so they could take me apart and look at my insides.  
  
"Talking won't change anything; sometimes I wonder why I try. I've come back here, to this single spot of earth, every year for you, since that day. I've crossed oceans, I've flown on the back of a metal hawk, I've walked across hundreds of miles just to get here. All for you. Only for you.  
  
"I hear your voice in the stirrings and whisperings of the trees. I smell your favorite variety of pipe-weed sometimes, too. I smoke a little now and then for memory's sake, never enough to get messed up, never enough to lose myself.  
  
"You didn't really believe in incarnation, but I always hoped. always dreamed that you'd come back to me someday.  
  
"All dreams come to an end.  
  
"But in all of them, I love you. I always have. I always will."  
  
[pic] 


End file.
